Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He is currently the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from...

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Crazy Logic: Stockholm Syndrome, Truth Tellers and Defenders of a Broken System

By Lij Teodrose Fikremariam on July 31, 2017

Every generation witnesses the death of truth tellers who dare to speak against injustice. Being a truth teller is a hard profession; even those who escape dissolution at the hands of tyrants end up being labeled as crazy and wackos for having the temerity to stand against oppression. A perquisite to be a truth-teller is to be judged as a lunatic; those who speak against the insanity of an unjust society are always called crazy.

The most ironic thing is that it’s usually the very victims of oppression that tend to assassinate the characters of those who stand astride iniquities. Voltaire once said “it is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere”. The way a few are able to conquer the vast majority of humanity is by putting them into chains. In the past, those chains were imposed by compulsion as slavery swallowed up countless millions throughout the world and turned people into cattle.

Though forced slavery is still present in the 21st century—look no further than our nation’s prison-industrial complex and sex trafficking that takes place globally if you need proof—there is another form of slavery that is infinitely harder to rid. A friend told me last week of a monkey that scientists experimented on to see how they could break his natural spirit. They offered the monkey all kinds of food, drugs and alcohol to see if they could lure him into dependence and thereby subjugate him by way of addiction.

The monkey rebuffed all offers and refused to consume all unnatural products. The scientists decided to stop trying to bait the monkey with externalities and instead focused on ways to entrap him from within. They placed an apple in a glass box with a hole large enough only to get his hand through it. When the monkey grabbed a hold of the apple and then tried to take his hand out, he could not get his clenched fist out of the glass box. All he had to do was drop the apple and he could have gotten his arm out, but greed and the desire to get at the apple made prevented him from dropping the fruit he desired. The monkey died as he refused freedom for the sake of an apple.

This is an allegory of our society. This system of consumerism and crony capitalism is the death of us. Yet we are so focused on gaining more and more that we are slowly killing our planet. Wars are fought on a regular basis in order to steal the wealth of nations and feed the engine of corporatism. A fractional percentage of humanity live like uber royalty while more and more people are getting caught in a perpetual cycle of poverty and indigence.

Capitalism had a good run—that run is about to end. In all honesty, capitalism was always as malignant as communism, a system set up to transfer wealth from many to a few (read Capitalism is Communism). As long as it created opportunity for just enough people and fostered a middle class, capitalism was accepted as a virtue. Ten years ago, capitalism hit it’s apex and we are now on a downward free-fall towards capitalism’s nadir. It’s no longer just the poor and the third world that capitalism is robbing, capital greed is now robbing from the middle class and Western nations in order to feed the gluttony of the 1%.

Capitalism is a system that is dependent on creating scarcity—that is a central tenant of capitalism. Creating scarcity is nothing more than systematic larceny as the wealth of nations is stolen in order to enrich the West and colonialists. Capitalism is in a death spiral; infinite growth is not possible, it is against the law of gravity and the law of economy. What has gone up is about to come down; it’s a matter of time before a financial wobble gives birth to an economic cataclysm (read Trump Derangement).

What I wrote above is called truth. For speaking this axiom, I know there are deadenders and capital defenders who will be stirred into a frenzy in order to uphold the “virtue” of the very system that is keeping them awake at night. This is what is known as Stockholm Syndrome, where victims of crime end up being dependent and defenders of the very same criminals who imprisoned them. Prison though is not just four walls and bars, the entire globe has been imprisoned by oligarchs and New World pricks who have given us apples that we refuse to relinquish.

Apples become our chains and handcuffs. It’s poetic, it was an apple that was used to bedevil Eve and Adam that led to an exodus. The exodus continues as Apple is now the devil that is ensnaring humanity into a state of dependency and indigence. There are plenty of people who speak this truth of our society and all of them are dismissed as crazy and lunatics. Society worships two-timing politicians, pundits and plutocrats who thrive from pillaging humanity only for that same society to turn around and dismiss people who speak against the establishment as some sort of conspiracy theorist and nut jobs.

This article is dedicated to those who have the courage to speak against conventional wisdom and refuse to get back in the line of blind acceptance. Do not be discouraged, if it was not for those who challenged the status quo and stood up against the tyranny of the establishment, we would still think that the sun revolves around earth and we would be speaking through two cans and a string.

Truth tellers are always maligned as crazy. This is true from biblical times to the present zeitgeist, they called Yeshua crazy before they nailed him to a cross and they have crucified one truth teller after another ever since. Disregard the naysayers, the more you make inroads and reach a bigger audience, the more the very people you defend will besmirch you. It’s always the victims of oppression that crucify those who speak up for liberty. They have to, truth tellers reminds them of their enslavement. They call truth tellers crazy because the truths being told is causing them cognitive dissonance. #CrazyLogic

“People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

If you appreciated this write up and want to stand up for truth regardless of the reactions truth might stir, share this article on social media using #CrazyLogic

Check out the Ghion Cast below where I discuss the options we have between partaking in the lies of the world or telling the truth in our hearts.

Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He is currently the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from a life of upper-middle class privilege to a time spent with the huddled masses taught Teodrose a valuable lesson in the essence of togetherness and the need to speak against injustice.

Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Lij Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Lij Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.